Hoynes also has a story from our old friend Brandon Phillips on what happened to the Reds this year. Quoth The Franchise, “it's all about certain players. Ken Griffey and his home-run chase, Josh Hamilton and his comeback season, everybody got caught up in that instead of winning. We're happy for Josh, but we want to win. And the next thing you know, Homer Bailey's up here. We're a team, and everybody's worried about three guys." Maybe it’s my inherent distaste for Phillips, but if he was included in the list that everyone’s talking about, would he be complaining?

Finally, a little something I looked up regarding our 2nd 10-game winner, El Diablo. After Carmona got run in the 6th inning of Saturday’s game, I explored what his OPS against is each inning:1st inning - .7162nd inning - .7373rd inning - .5734th inning - .8045th inning - .4736th inning - .8337th inning - .9248th inning - .8739th inning - 1.286Sure enough it seems there is something to Carmona being effective the first two times through the order, than seeing a huge jump in OPS against from the 5th to the 6th and even higher in the 7th. It’s not unusual for any pitcher to see this type of jump, but again, when stats back up what your eyes see, there’s something there.

Heading into the All-Star break with a 52-36 record.Revel in it for a few days.

Posted by
Paul Cousineau

6 comments:

Two interesting tidbits from the PD today: Grady was asked to be in the Derby and respectfully declined, and Sowers is apparently getting his act together in Buffalo...

Jeremy Sowers dropped to 0-3 at Class AAA Buffalo on Saturday after a loss to Durham. Sowers, who started the season in the Tribe's rotation, struck out six, but allowed five runs on seven hits in seven innings.

Sowers has made five starts since being demoted by the Indians on June 10. He's struck out 18, walked seven and allowed 43 hits in 32 2/3 innings.

"He's doing what he needs to do," said Wedge. "He's in a good frame of mind."

btw, a new suggestion. I think we can all agree that is Sheldon Ocker was a horse, we'd shoot him. However, shouldn't we mock the folks that write him more forcefully than Ocker himself? I mean, he is just doing his "job" and at least he's getting paid. These idiots are actually spending time crafting serious messages to him.

We can also start a campaign to see if we can get responses: socker@thebeaconjournal.com